Your Persistence Has Paid Off

For your continued faith and diligence in checking this Lazy blog over it's fruitless past 4 months, you have earned ONE very long, not completely thorough, catch-up post:

My sister, Shannon, hosted Thanksgiving at her house, and we were joined by Grandma and Papa Dean.

We feasted, played the Great Dalmuti, jammed to Grandpa's Guitar and watched my brother-in-law, Darren entertain the kids with silly songs and dances.

The Day after Thanksgiving we set up our Christmas tree and held our traditonal Christmas Eve festivities.

Since Christmas would be in New Mexico we thought we'd celebrate early with the folks, and get to have our traditions despite the travel later in the season.
We set up the advent calender, Emma topped the tree, Aaron lit a fire in the fireplace, Grandpa read the nativity from Luke, and we roasted marshmellows. Wouldn't be complete without the customary chili or oyster stew dinner.
Next day we woke up and had "Christmas at Thanksgiving" with Grandma and Grandpa (aka Papa Dean).

Our Tommy-boy Turned Three at the end of November.
Thomas, Finley and I spent the morning at the zoo and we had a rip-roaring party at home that evening.

December 10th I loaded the Spraguelings into our mini-van a-la cartop carrier, and drove caravan style with my sister to New Mexico.

We had a great trip, and the kids were very good to me. The roads stayed dry, the weather fine, until after we arrived at my brother's houses in Albequerque. We woke the next day to little voices exclaiming excitedly that snow was falling...such as it was. It didn't take much white stuff to delight these Florida kids, and they played in it until it disappeared.

Our entire trip was filled with together time. This was the first time in ten years that the four of us siblings were together. (That's my little brother William next to me, then Shannon, and our oldest brother A.J. on the right.) I got to see my Grandpa Johnny, my Mom's father, while we were down in Roswell. I got the chance to see my aunts Greta, Kay, and Zelma. The time spent with Will gave me the chance to get to know his sweet fiance' a little more.

It was beautiful to have time to just Be Together. Eating, playing card games, rocking Guitar Hero on the Wii. Aaron joined us on the 21st,

and Christmas morning at William's house found us all together under one roof to see the 6 kids greet Christmas Day.

Gifts were abundant, as were smiles and awed expressions.

Granny is to thank for these sweet girlies in matching Christmas dresses. Enough to make a mama's heart twitter. That's Shannon's little Amelia on the left, my Finley Grace in the middle, and my own Emma Kate looking dreamy on the right.

Aaron and my Dad made the return trip with me and the littles. We braved what this Florida girl will call a blizzard, were thankfully/unfortunately saved by/stranded in a dive motel with leapord print sheets for the night while my sister and her family had a scary snow-related accident in their truck pulling the camper. No one but the pretty truck was hurt, and we all made it home for New Years.

Our Finley Gracie turned ONE on January 3rd,

and started crawling her own stylized version of a crawl the next day. One knee down, foot tucked in, one let out, hobble bummy scoot. The girl's got style. Groovy!

In honor of her beloved snuggle duck, she had a chocolate Duckie cake. But not before covering herself in spaghetti and green beans. Dinner was good, cake was great, but Finley was DELICIOUS.

There now, we're all up to speed and I can stop avoiding the blogosphere. Chime in on the comment section so I know you haven't given up on us. We'll come around more often now that we don't feel like such slackers. love to you all...